Spring Cleaning
by Sierra Janeway
Summary: Grissom and his team dig up eight bodies in the woods and rush to process the evidence before a possible serial killer strikes again. Back at the lab, DNA evidence provides a chilling twist on the old story...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All characters and such belong to CBS. I own the characters that I made up and the new plot.

Author's Note: I've written several other fan fiction stories, but this is my first CSI fic. (So I'm sorry if I don't have everything down exactly right quite yet.) I guess it was inevitable—as with _Star Trek: Voyager _before, getting hooked on a TV show means my head is suddenly bombarded with new ideas.

I've done a lot of research for this story to attempt to make everything as accurate as possible. I hope my effort shows. (Granted, some of the research was watching the CSI Sunday marathon, but, hey, how else am I supposed to make sure all the dialogue I use is correct for each character? There was also plenty regular encyclopedia research, but it wasn't nearly as entertaining!)

**WARNING: **This is rated T for the subject matter and some of language, although I did censor it. This story is somewhat dark, so proceed at your own discretion.

Let me know what you think. Enjoy!

_'Spring Cleaning'_

On a lonely forest hill ten miles from anywhere, the sound of digging broke the early morning silence. A pile of loose earth got smaller and smaller, albeit slowly, as a well-worn shovel shifted it to fill a hole in the ground. It was still mostly dark outside, the sky the color of a bruise. A tiny bit of light filtered through the trees to aid the digger's dying flashlight.

When the hole was completely filled, the person wielding the shovel set it aside and, by hand, pulled loose twigs, leaves, and pine needles over the loose topsoil to hide the signs of recent digging. Blood mixed with leaves and dirt as the scar of a hole was camouflaged.

The digger knelt and laid a few roadside wildflowers atop the filled hole. Standing up, the full of effect of the area hit the person. What little there was in the person's stomach came surging back up violently, spattering the base of a tree. The digger grabbed the shovel and desperately began to run in the opposite direction at full speed.

The person ran and ran, not thinking, just running, tripping and falling several times. After a few minutes, the woods ended abruptly and gave way to a little-used paved road. The person stood on the edge of the road, panting, shaking, and white, trying to ignore a throbbing head. An ancient-looking station wagon with peeling blue paint appeared soon thereafter and stopped parallel to the shaking figure.

A tall balding man with beady brown eyes and a cruel face yelled through the vehicle's open windows. "What the h--- is the matter with you?!? Did you do what I told you to?"

There was a nod in response.

"Good. Now get in the d--- car!"

The fearful person did as instructed, scrambling quickly into the back passenger side seat, yanking the door shut, and clicking an ugly, dirty, dog-eared seatbelt into place.

The driver spoke up again as they zoomed away. "You done yet or what?"

"Done," came the quiet, fearful reply.

"Finally, d---it!" was the enraged reaction.

A few tears slipped down a dirt-covered cheek.

* * *

Gil Grissom sat with his team in the break room, reading an interesting newspaper article while the rest of them chatted and snacked. He barely registered anything around him, and only looked up after Sara Sidle called his name twice.

"What?" he asked.

"What's the most interesting case you worked on this week?" Sara patiently repeated. Catherine Willows, Nick Stokes, and Warrick Brown looked at him expectantly.

He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. "Hold that thought," he said, flipping the phone open. "Grissom." He listened to the caller for a minute, then responded. "We'll be right there." He looked up at the other CSIs. "In answer to your question Sara, this could be it. That was Brass. A lost tourist found a body in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I'm driving."

Twenty minutes later, the CSI SUVs coasted to a stop on a little-used road. Thick forest grew on both sides. Red and blue lights flashed atop police cars as the group piled of the vehicle and followed Grissom as he ducked under the crime scene tape. Jim Brass waited for them on the other side. "Tourist lost his way heading out of the city. He decided to turn around, but first he pulled over and let his dog out to stretch its legs. When the dog didn't come back for a while, he went looking for it. He found it digging up something. When he saw it was a human arm, he called the cops."

"Did anyone finish digging up the body?" Grissom asked.

"We were waiting for you."

"Good. Warrick, I want you to interview the tourist. Find out if he saw anything that might help us."

"Right," Warrick responded, and he headed for where the police were questioning him.

The rest of the team proceeded up the hill with Grissom. "Who all's been up here?"

"Just myself," Brass replied.

They crested the top of the hill and were able to see the burial site for the first time. Dirt the color of coffee grounds was scattered around from the dog's digging. A mangled arm was clearly visible above the surface.

"Perfect place to get rid of a body," Catherine commented, raising her camera and snapping a few shots of the arm. "We're five miles from anywhere."

"More like ten," Grissom corrected. "All right. Catherine and Nick, I want you to cover the immediate area. When you finish that, grab some shovels and sieves and dig up the body. Sara and I will take the surrounding area. Did anyone call a coroner?"

"David's on his way," Brass answered. "I'll leave you to your work." With that, he walked back down the hill. Grissom and Sara began a systematic search pattern, leaving Nick and Catherine at the burial site.

Nick surveyed the ground carefully. "I think I've got a footprint here." He paused, examining it more closely, and added in surprise, "Looks like a bare foot." He put an L-shaped ruler near the print and photographed it.

"That's odd. The ground's pretty rocky for going around in your bare feet," Catherine commented. "It also would have made digging a pain in the neck."

"I know. It doesn't make any sense."

Catherine nodded. Suddenly, she spied something small away from where the dog had been digging. She crouched down to look more closely and realized it was a tiny bouquet of flowers. She set an evidence marker next to them and snapped a picture. "Hey Nick…"

He looked over at her.

She picked up the flowers using a small pair of tweezers. "Wildflowers, ripped and not cut." In surprise, she added, "These were put here deliberately."

"Killer felt guilty?"

"I don't know. Bag these, will you? We might be able to get some epithelials off them."

While Nick bagged the flowers, Catherine carefully sorted through the forest-floor debris. Twigs and rocks yielded nothing, but she found a leaf that made her stop. It was coated with a thick, slippery, dark liquid. "Nick, pass me a swab and the phenolphthalein."

"What did you find now?" he asked, half-exasperated, as he handed them to her.

Catherine delicately swabbed the leaf and dripped the clear phenolphthalein on the end of the swab. It turned a violent pink. "A bloody leaf," she told Nick. "I'll bag this and get it to Greg. Did you find anything else?"

Nick nodded and indicated an area on the ground to his left as he placed several bright green evidence markers near the base of a tree. "Looks like impressions from the tip of a shovel. Could be the killer took several breaks, sticking the shovel in the ground each time."

"Makes sense. The ground's rocky and, from the size of that footprint, I'd say he's certainly no Goliath. All of those factors would make it almost impossible to keep going without a rest every now and then."

Both of them had visions of a silhouetted small man struggling with a shovel in the unforgiving soil. He strained to lift small shovelfuls of stony earth and winced at the stones biting into his bare feet. He laboriously made progress on the hole, making it large enough to hold a human body. Occasionally, he would jam the shovel into the ground while he wiped the sweat from his brow.

Catherine frowned. "Why barefoot? It doesn't make any sense."

Shrugging, Nick replied, "I'll get some plaster of Paris for these impressions and the footprints." He turned away from the gravesite and started to head back to the vehicle, but something at the base of the tree to his left caught his eye. He squatted down to get a closer look.

From his closer vantage point, he could see now that it was brownish-orange liquid with small chunks of matter suspended in it. He furrowed his brow, not sure what it was.

The wind suddenly shifted and he caught a strong whiff of the mystery substance. "Vomit," he choked.

"You say something, Nick?" Catherine called.

"Yeah," he replied, standing up with one hand loosely over his nose and mouth. "Somebody threw up all over this tree."

* * *

In the meantime, Sara and Grissom moved slowly through the woods, looking for anything out of place. They walked silently for quite some time before Sara spoke up.

"Grissom, I think I have something." Her camera flashed as she documented the evidence at her feet.

"What is it?" Grissom walked over to get a closer look.

Sara held up a blue thread with a pair of tweezers. "Could be from our killer. As isolated as this area is, I doubt it's from a casual hiker."

He nodded in agreement. "Bag it." He moved away again, absorbed in the pursuit of elusive clues. Everywhere there was evidence of the forest floor being recently disturbed, but more than likely it was the result of an animal that had every right to be there. He searched for a few more minutes. Frustrated, he sighed. "I'm not finding anything. I'm going to head back to the burial site and see what Nick and Catherine have come up with."

"All right," Sara called. "I'll meet up with you later."

Grissom made good time on his way back to the focal point of the crime scene, even while keeping his eyes open for evidence. He didn't find anything more and was glad when he reached the body. Nick, Catherine, and the newly arrived David knelt around the recently excavated hole.

"Well?" he asked.

"Didn't find anything in the dirt we dug up," Nick informed him. "But Catherine has an I.D. on our vic."

Catherine held up an open wallet where a driver's license was displayed in its clear plastic window. "Terri Parsons, age 34, address…Rocky Springs, Colorado? She's a long way from home."

"Tourist?" Grissom asked.

"I don't think so. She looks more like a woman on a business trip," Catherine replied, indicating the body. A woman with short blonde hair and light skin wearing a long-sleeved, dark purple blouse and dark grey slacks lay in the hole, her arms and neck mutilated and a bloody hole in her shirt.

"Do we have a TOD or COD?"

"Well, for a preliminary COD," David said, gently fingering the bloody tears in the woman's shirt. "I'm going to say a single stab wound to the chest. The wounds on the neck and arms don't look fatal. As for a TOD, we're going to have to wait and maybe not get one at all."

"Why's that?"

"She's frozen almost solid."

"Frozen?"

David nodded.

Grissom frowned. "She was probably killed a while ago. A human body takes at least two whole days to freeze entirely, and the fact that she was frozen at all makes me think that the killer was waiting to bury the body, biding his time until it was convenient," he mused aloud. "She could have been killed weeks, maybe months ago." He knelt down to get a closer look at the woman in the grave. He could see some bruises and scratches on her face, her blouse was torn, and there was something under her fingernails. "Looks like she put up a fight. Catherine, make sure you scrape out her nails."

"Will do," she replied.

Grissom knelt with the others and squinted at something black on the victim's left ear. He adjusted his latex gloves and pulled out a pair of tweezers. Gently, he removed the material from where it was caught on the woman's earring back. He held it up for the others to see.

"Black plastic. Garbage bag, maybe?" It fluttered in the breeze, and he added, "The cheap stuff."

Suddenly, Sara shouted, "Grissom!"

He hurriedly handed the evidence to Nick and took off running through the woods, instinctively afraid that Sara was hurt or that maybe the killer had come back. Her voice sounded urgent, and a little upset. _Please let it be nothing…_

When he could see Sara, he slowed to a jog, thankful and a little discomfited that he had automatically assumed the worst. Sara stood beside a tree, unharmed, though with an odd look on her face.

Panting slightly, he asked, "What is it?"

Simply, she replied, "I found more."

"More what?" he asked her, confused.

Sara pointed at the forest floor near her feet. The dirt had been recently disturbed and was the same size as the grave they had found. A tiny bouquet of flowers sat on top.

He had barely grasped what he was seeing when she pointed to a spot beyond them. "Look over there."

Two more graves were at the far end of the clearing where they stood.

Grissom and Sara remained where they were for several seconds before Grissom reached for his cell phone. "Someone's been busy," he said grimly.

* * *

Author's Note: What did you think? I hope I did all right for my first shot at CSI. It is my second favorite TV show, after all, and I want to do it justice. I really appreciate reviews, so if you can, please review. Thanks! 


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: All characters and such belong to CBS. I own the characters that I made up and the new plot._

Author's Note: Sorry about the length of time since I've updated. Ugh, life is crazy and the other stories were clamoring for attention…Hope you like the new chapter.

* * *

**Spring Cleaning**

It was a solemn group that reconvened in the woods that afternoon. Four more graves had been discovered, bringing the grand total to eight. Eight graves, eight dead women, and, apparently, eight different methods of murder.

David led the entire CSI team from burial site to burial site like a guide for a sick tourist attraction. "Victim number one, Terri Parsons, stabbed through the heart." Everyone had seen her already, and they quickly moved off to the next grave, some distance away. For Grissom, it was a much shorter distance than he remembered running while wondering about Sara.

"Victim number two, Grace Lyden, strangled," David continued. Another short hike brought them to the third victim, Jessica-Marie Franklin, who had been shot in the back of the head. Victims four and five were Lynette Walters and Patricia Stewart. Patricia's throat had obviously been cut, but Lynette showed no outward cause of death. Number six, Helen McCamrey, also had no obvious COD, while Vanessa Young, number seven, was a sickening blunt force trauma victim: there wasn't a part of her that wasn't bruised and she had a large dent in her skull.

"And lastly, victim number eight. Mariah Bennell. COD appears to be a broken neck." David paused, finished with his grisly reel of facts. "The victims are numbered in the order that we found them, not the order that they died. All of them show signs of having been frozen, and some of them have been here a while, so TODs are going to be difficult."

The CSIs looked around the forest, now pitted with holes, where they had spent all morning and afternoon. Only now, after digging for so long, could they get back to the lab to process what they'd found.

In addition to the bouquets they had found, the killer had taken the time to scratch each woman's initials into small rocks left at the gravesite. "That's pretty personal," Catherine commented about the hasty grave markers. "I wonder if our killer knew all these women."

"What kind of killer leaves his victim's I.D. in their wallet?" Warrick thought out loud.

"Biggest question…is this guy still out there, and is he gonna do it again?" Nick added.

"I know where to find the answers to all your questions, and mine," Grissom said, addressing everyone. "They're back at the lab." He nodded his head in the direction of the road. "Let's go."

* * *

Grissom made his way to the autopsy room the next morning, walking slowly down the hallway that was now lined with multiple rolling carts. Each contained the body of a young woman who should have been off taking on the world but now was merely a cold lump of flesh, another puzzle for Dr. Robbins to solve. With only so much space in the autopsy room, it was inevitable that some bodies would have to wait outside but somehow it was different looking at them away from the cold, harsh lights. Here in the hall, many of them appeared to only be sleeping. Grissom cast a sad glance over a dark-haired woman who barely looked old enough to be out of college before he sighed and pushed open the swinging door.

Inside, Dr. Al Robbins stood between two of the three carts that were inside the autopsy room. "Well, I'm almost positive that the same person killed all these women."

Grissom, who had been looking at the body of victim number three, looked up. "How so?"

"I found this on each of the eight bodies," the coroner replied, lifting the left shoulder of victim number two. Grissom leaned in to get a closer look at the marking, a simple black 'x'.

"Is that…permanent marker?" he asked.

"It appears to be. I sent a sample to trace."

At that moment, the rest of the night shift CSI team trooped into the autopsy room. "What do you have for us, doc?" Warrick asked.

"Not much more than you already know. I'm still working on a timeline of who died when, but I did confirm COD's for six, and I have COD's for your two unknowns." Dr. Robbins laboriously made his way over to victim five. He pulled down the white sheet covering the body and pointed out a line of blisters running across her upper arms and chest. "She was electrocuted while she was bathing. It's typical for this type of death and shows the level of the water in the bathtub at the time."

"What about number six?" Catherine asked, looking at the next autopsy table.

Dr. Robbins limped over. "There was no overt cause, so I sent her blood panel to tox, marked priority. I just got the results back."

Catherine looked at him expectantly and tucked a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear. "And?"

"Arsenic. She was poisoned."

"Stabbed, strangled, shot, slit, electrocuted, poisoned, beaten, broken." Sara looked at the others with an uneasy expression on her face. "This guy's gotta be a psycho."

"First we have to confirm that it was the same guy that killed all of them," Nick reminded her.

"I believe Dr. Robbins has done that for us." Grissom lifted the left shoulder of the nearest body. "Every one of these victims has this black 'x' on her left shoulder, probably in permanent marker."

"Don't serial killers usually stick to the same MO? These women were all killed differently…" Catherine looked hesitant to accept Doc Robbins' 'x marks the victim' theory.

"It could be escalation," Grissom said, frowning as he looked around the room. "The first killing didn't bring enough satisfaction to the killer, so he tried something else."

"In what order?" Nick asked incredulously, and took a look around himself.

"We'll have to work on that." Grissom replied calmly.

"So it's the same killer. We're still going to have a heck of a time processing evidence from eight bodies and eight burial sites," Warrick interjected.

"That's why we're going to divide and conquer. Sara and I will process the evidence on victims one through four, Catherine and Warrick victims five, six, and seven, and Nick victim eight," Grissom explained. "I have to head over to DNA and let Greg know he'll be burning the midnight oil."

* * *

Later on, back at the lab, Sara and Grissom sat side by side, sorting through evidence from the first four burial sites.

"The first grave we found is probably the most recent," Sara reflected out loud. "None of the other graves had evident shovel marks or footprints."

"Right," Grissom agreed. "Rain and wind and possibly animal activity would erase that sort of evidence from the older burial sites."

"So our best chance of finding anything substantial is there."

"Exactly."

Sara looked over all the boxes and bags and containers covering the top of the table. "If he left us all this evidence, how come he's gotten away with it for so long? I doubt he killed all those women within the last three weeks."

"You saw how deserted it was out there, and these women are all from out of town. If no one was really looking for them, chances are they became a missing persons folder at the bottom of a huge stack. Speaking of which, I have Nick pulling up all their files in the missing persons database. It might give us a common denominator to work with."

"At the very least, it'll let us know who to break the news too," Sara replied with a soft, frustrated sigh.

"Hey."

She looked up.

Grissom took off his glasses and gave her a gentle look. "The best thing we can do for them now is dig in and figure out what happened."

With a slow nod she replied, "I know…it's just…hard. There's eight of them, Grissom. Eight women with nothing in common but some psycho."

He handed her a folder. "The faster we get to work, the faster that number goes down. And the faster we prevent it from going up."

* * *

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Warrick strode into the room where Nick sat squinting at a computer screen, glancing up every so often to ruffle through a stack of old, stuffed folders or to scribble on a legal pad on the desk next to him. "Hey Nicky boy, whaddya got?"

"Eyestrain." He rubbed his face tiredly as Warrick laughed.

"That all?"

"Calm down, I also have a possible timeline."

Warrick serioused up immediately. "Really? Let's see."

Nick slid him the legal pad. "Mariah Bennell came to Las Vegas two years ago to celebrate graduating from college. She booked a room in a hotel for two nights, saw some sights, the usual Vegas experience. When the cleaning staff came in on the third morning, they found her belongings. She'd never checked out, and no one's seen her since. Well, except for us."

"Right."

Nick flipped to the next page and indicated another name with the tip of his pencil. "Then, twenty-two months ago, Helen McCamrey flew in to visit her sick sister. She never even made to her sister's house. Half an hour after she left the airport, she'd essentially vanished." He moved the pencil further down the page. "Five months after that, Vanessa Young came out with some friends over Christmas break and disappeared as they left a club late at night."

"That's a lot of time after two killings so close together…"

"Yeah…definitely something to bring up to Gris." Nick flipped to another page on the legal pad. "Patricia Stewart came for a business seminar three months after Vanessa disappeared. _She _disappeared after a lunch meeting. Then Lynette Walters goes missing three months after that. She was on a date with a guy she'd met at the airport bar earlier that day. Turns out the guy was kind of a jerk, and they were supposed to catch separate taxis back to their hotels. Her date later felt bad about how the date had ended and he called her cell to apologize. After she didn't answer fifteen times in a row, he went to her hotel to apologize in person. Door was locked, no answer. She'd called ahead to order a midnight snack from room service, and the room service guy had a key. Her date and the staff member entered the room…no Lynette. Never checked out either."

Warrick frowned at Nick's notes on the Walters case. "Cops interview the date?"

"Yeah, and he had a rock solid alibi from a number of people and security cameras, but mostly the bartender that was helping him…drown his failed-date sorrows." Nick mimed knocking back shots.

"Gotcha. What about the other three women?"

"Ok…Jessica-Marie Franklin was out here for an interview with an architectural firm about two months after Lynette's disappearance. Jessica-Marie never made it to the interview. Two months after _her_, Grace Lyden goes missing while watching a show. Her friends' statements say that she left for a quick bathroom break and never made it back to her seat." He turned to his last page of notes. "And lastly there's Terri Parsons. Two months after Grace, and about four months ago, Terri flies in with two of her co-workers to present a proposal to their company's parent company here in Vegas. The meeting went well, everyone was pleased with the idea, Terri and her co-workers went out for drinks, and Terri disappears while they're trying to hail a cab."

"All of them were from out of town?"

"Yep." Nick turned to Warrick, tapping the pencil on the edge of the table. "I'm thinking this guy picked women he knew wouldn't have roots in the area, no family looking for them."

"But some of them were with groups of friends when they went missing."

"True, but they were friends who would have to go home soon."

"And leave the investigation to an overworked police force."

Nick nodded slowly. "Exactly."

* * *

­­­­­­Catherine entered the DNA lab to find Greg rocking out to something heavy metal, as best as she could tell from the little sound that escaped his headphones. He nodded, made angry faces, and pretended to wildly drum on the various instruments in the room.

"Greg?" she inquired loudly. "Hey, Greg!" Still nothing. "GREG!!" When shouting didn't work, she yanked the headphones off his head. "We have a possible serial killer on the loose and you're listening to music?"

He snatched the headphones back but shut off his CD player. "It helps me think. And you just can't rush DNA."

She frowned at him, hands on her hips.

He threw up his arms in an exaggerated shoulder shrug. "You just can't!"

"So you have nothing for me."

Greg made a strangled incredulous noise as he moved through the lab, gesturing at different samples on the tables. "I have to extract DNA from these epithelials from the flowers, and on the blood from the leaf, and from the puke—which, needless to say, takes longer not just because of its composition but also for the ick factor—and then I have to run them, one at a time, and then run whatever I get through who knows how many databases…it's going to be a while."

She nodded slowly. "All right." She then tossed him a small baggie.

He caught it and squinted at the wad of white in the bottom. "What's this?"

"Used tissue found at the scene." She gave him a pointed look as she headed out the door. "Less music, more analyzing," she called.

Greg looked at the tissue for a moment before he reached for his headphones. "Snot," he murmured as he picked a track. "Awesome..."

* * *

Author's Note: Once again, my apologies for how long it's taken me to create a new chapter. Hopefully summer vacation will give me a chance to do more writing than I've been able to do for quite some time.


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer: All characters and such belong to CBS. I own the characters that I made up and the new plot._

Author's Note: Sorry about the length of time since I've updated. Ugh, life is crazy and the other stories were clamoring for attention. I waited until I had updates for all my stories so I could update them all at once and make more people happy.

I realize things are moving really quickly in this chapter, but I feel that I owe it to you guys to 'get a move on' since I've made you wait so long. This chapter is where things really get interesting, I hope!

Thank you so much for reading and reviewing!

* * *

**Spring Cleaning**

It had been a late night for all the graveyard shift CSIs, and they still weren't much closer to nailing down a suspect. Greg was backlogged in DNA and trying desperately to get out from under the pile, but it was slow going.

That pretty much summed up the whole investigation thus far: slow. They had a mountain of biological evidence, which would be incredibly helpful in court, but as of yet, the DNA wasn't actually telling them anything.

The next afternoon, everyone was back and hard at work, trying to make sense of any and all non-DNA evidence.

"Grissom!"

The head CSI turned to see the coroner leaning on a cane, clutching a stack of folders. He walked back to him. "What's all this?"

"Autopsy reports for all eight victims." He satisfactorily let them slide into Grissom's arms.

"I knew you were fast, doc, but…"

"I called in some favors. There was a team of us in there last night, double and triple checking, weighing, measuring, typing, everything. I heard how backed up things are in DNA right now, so I pushed everyone a little harder so I could give you these today. I hope it helps."

"DNA's a double-edged sword," Grissom mused as he flipped through the top folder, that of the formerly lovely young Mariah Bennell. "It can make all the difference in a case, but to do that you have to be able to process it. And with the way it's become priority evidence in every case from burglary to murder…" He trailed off, thinking, before he looked back up at Doc Robbins. "Thank you. I really appreciate this."

The older man nodded. "Just promise me one thing."

"What's that?"

Robbins nodded at the stack. "Keep any more of those girls from ending up on my autopsy table."

* * *

Grissom poked his head in the door of the display room where he had Catherine and Warrick double- checking evidence from the graves of victims five through seven. "You guys come up with anything?"

"Nothing substantial." Catherine made a face as she took another swig of coffee. "This stuff is gross."

"Then why are you drinking it?"

"Couldn't sleep last night. Every time I closed I closed my eyes I saw those graves."

Grissom nodded. "I know what you mean. So, what _do_ you have? Nothing substantial is better than nothing."

Warrick handed him yet another folder. "I had the documents guys take a look at the initials on the headstone rocks. They can't do much with just a couple letters that small, but they did tell us that the killer is right handed and impaired somehow in that arm."

"Impaired?"

Warrick pulled the folder back, flipped through, and pulled out a photograph comparing four of the stones. "See how these letters are hesitant, malformed?"

"It's hard to write that small on a rock."

"It's more than that. Something kept this guy from meeting even that standard."

"Hmm. Are you thinking one of the victims fought back and injured him?"

"If one did," Catherince interjected. "It wasn't one of ours. Patricia didn't have time to fight—he had to have used a huge knife on her." She pointed to the autopsy photo showing the nasty gash in her neck. "Helen and Vanessa don't look like they had any chance either. What about the girls you and Sara are working on?"

"Well, all eight of the victims' bodies show evidence of being bound, but Terri Parsons has less than the others. She may have freed herself and managed to injure him before he stabbed her."

"While I'm thinking about it," Warrick broke in. "Do either of you have any theory about why Lynette would be taking a bath while her killer was around? I know she's not in our victim group but it's really been bothering me. Are you thinking she was sexually assaulted?"

Grissom pulled a chair up to the table where his colleagues were seated. "That was bugging Sara and I too. We came up with a couple of ideas, one being that yes, the killer could have assaulted her first and made her wash the evidence off. But I checked her autopsy report and there's no evidence of forced activity, and from what I remember none of the rest of the eight had any evidence of that either. So then we thought that maybe he intended to drown her but changed his mind and pushed something electrical into the bathtub."

"But why undress her?"

Their supervisor shook his head. "We're not sure. Maybe to humiliate her."

"Hang on…" Catherine stopped looking through the folders on their victims and turned to him. "Did you guys process the footprint Nick found?"

"Yeah, it's about a size six. Why?"

"Maybe he pulled a Bundy and charmed these women into his car or his home. If he's that small, I can't imagine him using sheer force to grab them."

"Unless he had a gun."

"True, but if he was putting on the charm it could explain why Lynette was taking a bath with him around. She'd just come from a bad date, maybe she decided to hook up with this guy. She's taking a bath, he snaps for some reason, ties her up, and throws a toaster in the tub."

"A toaster?" Grissom said, raising an eyebrow.

"Some unknown electrical device, ok?"

"Ok." Grissom looked slightly amused.

"Anyway," Warrick said. "Who's notifying the families?"

"I've asked Brass to do that, but in a day or two."

"What? Why? Their families have got to be worried."

"We don't have anything to tell them yet. I realize where you're coming from, Warrick, but I would prefer to wait until we at least have a lead or two. Not to mention the somewhat selfish reason."

"What's that?"

"It keeps the Feds out of our hair. All these victims are from out of state. Once we start making notifications, the FBI is going to want to get involved. I want to have a chance to work this as a solely local crime before someone blows it out of proportion and creates a panic. The killer isn't going to know we're on to him unless he goes back to the gravesite or hears about on the evening news."

The younger CSI nodded. "Yeah, I get what you're saying. Ok."

"How long do you think we can keep this quiet?" Catherine asked. "Someone probably knows we removed a bunch of bodies from the woods."

"Right now, I'll take whatever I can get. If we do have a serial killer on our hands, we might have to make an announcement to the press anyway in the interest of keeping people alive."

"I know what you mean about the Feds," she added hesitantly. "But if this is a serial killer, wouldn't it be good to have one of their profilers out here?"

"The problem is you can never just get a profiler. You have to explain the situation to the FBI, send documents and photos, and then they send an army of guys in suits."

"True. How are we coming on the DNA?"

Grissom sighed. "Not good. Greg was here almost all night and couldn't make much headway—one of the machines went on the fritz. They sent Greg home to get some sleep and brought in a repair crew."

"How about fingerprints?"

He shook his head. "Nothing there either. All the prints on the women's licenses and the garbage bags belong to one person who isn't in AFIS. I'm starting to wonder if—"

Suddenly, Nick came flying into the room. "Guys I may have cracked this case wide open," he announced earnestly.

* * *

The entire team gathered in another reconstruction room where Nick had pictures scattered on the table and taped to a board, as well as a couple close-ups of the x-markings displayed on a computer screen. "Ok, since I was only assigned to work on evidence and related materials for one victim, I took the liberty of checking through state and national crime databases. I was looking for anything that sounded even remotely like our eight murders."

He pulled up a case file on another large computer screen. "I found this: about six years ago, a number of women tourists went missing for several days before they turned up dazed, confused, and injured in various places around the city. They had all been sexually assaulted, and eventually the police were able to make a DNA match in CODIS. They arrested this creep." Here Nick pulled up an image of a scrawny, dingy man with scruffy blond hair and the beginnings of an equally scruffy beard. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. Obviously a drug user. "Name's Manuel Otis, goes by Manny. Apparently he liked to seduce young, pretty tourists into having drinks with him, then he'd drug them and take them back to his apartment where he'd assault them. Afterwards, he would…do things with their unconscious bodies."

"What kinds of things?" Grissom asked, frowning.

Nick turned back to the computer screen and maximized several images of injured women. "Hit them, half strangle them, take baths with them, cut them."

"But not kill them."

"Right."

"What makes you think this is the guy?"

Another set of pictures appeared on the screen, close-ups of small drawings in black ink on women's necks, shoulders, and arms.

"Black permanent marker?" Catherine asked, incredulous.

"Yep. Apparently he liked to draw on his victims before he dumped them off. I was even more suspicious when I looked at his rap sheet. These attacks stopped when he went to jail, and our murders started up when he was released after four years for good behavior."

"Four years? That's it?!" Sara demanded. "They let him out after four years?!"

Nick shrugged. "I don't get it either."

"So this guy liked to experiment," Grissom mused. "He didn't escalate, just switched MOs for the fun of it."

"Exactly. Maybe his escalation happened after prison, when it looks like he escalated to murder."

"Good job Nick. Even if this isn't our guy, he is _definitely_ someone we need to talk to."

There came a tentative voice. "Um, guys?" Greg asked hesitantly, almost tip-toeing into the room.

"What is it?" Grissom replied.

"He's not your guy," the lab tech answered, indicating the computer screen with the photo of Manny Otis.

"Why do you say that?" Warrick asked, confused. "We literally _just_ matched his MO to these killings."

"Ok, but I finally got the DNA processed." Greg kept looking around like he was afraid to get yelled at.

"And?" Catherine cajoled.

"And Manny's not your guy because it isn't one."

"What's not what?"

"I ran these three times to make sure," he explained thrusting the folder at Grissom and stepping back. "I swear."

"Greg."

He took a deep breath. "All the DNA is XX. Female."

* * *

Author's note: Again, I am so sorry I took so long to get this updated. I hope the story is keeping your interest and the newest plot twist keeps you tuned in for more! I will do my utmost to get another chapter up in better time than it took me for this one! Thanks for sticking with me!


	4. Chapter 4

_Disclaimer: All characters and such belong to CBS. I own the characters that I made up and the new plot._

**Summary: **Grissom and his team dig up eight bodies in the woods and rush to process the evidence before a possible serial killer strikes again. Back at the lab, DNA evidence provides a chilling twist on the old story...

**Chronology: **No specific time, just one of the seasons with Grissom

**Pairings: **Slight GSR.

**Rating: **T for situations and probably some mild cursing.

**Author's Note:** As you may have noticed, I've updated my pre-story info format. Change can be good. I hope this will be helpful both to my wonderful readers and myself.

Yet again, I bring you an update that I should have done months ago. Thanks for sticking with me and my wintertime-molasses-slow updates. Yet again, I apologize for how long it has taken me to get off my lazy butt and actually type up a new chapter. I'm in the process of creating an update schedule so that I only work on two or so stories at a time. Hopefully this will feel less overwhelming and encourage me to write more often. Of course, I still have my college schedule and homework to contend with, so I can't promise anything. But I do think it should make a difference. Thanks for your continued readership!! Hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

**Spring Cleaning**

The revelation that all of the DNA samples found at the burial site belonged to a female rendered the team speechless for a minute.

"Like I said, I checked it three times," Greg said as he backed away from the group, his hands in the air as though in surrender.

"All of it's female?" Grissom finally asked.

Greg nodded vehemently. "The blood, the vomit, the snot, the epithelials, everything."

"Is it all from the same female?" Catherine asked, frowning, as she watched Grissom flip through the printed reports.

"Yep."

"I don't suppose it's from one of the victims…? Killer made her bury her fellow victims, then killed and buried her?"

"Nope. I checked it against the DNA profiles of all the victims and no matches. Also, no familial connections."

"CODIS?" Warrick asked hopefully.

"That I do not know. I have the computer checking now, but we lost a lot of time when that machine went down. I have like thirty samples that need checked and running that many at once is really slowing things down."

"Greg, this case takes top priority until further notice," Grissom said, glancing up from the DNA result printouts. "Cancel running some of the other samples until we get an answer on this one if you need to. I want you to run this through every DNA database there is until we get some answers. The sooner we know who left DNA all over the crime scene the better."

Greg nodded nervously and scurried out of the room.

"Gris…" Nick said, hesitatingly in a somewhat hushed tone. "Are…are we looking at a female serial killer?"

"That would certainly make a lot of things make sense, wouldn't it?" Catherine mused. "The small footprints, the struggle to dig the graves besides the rocky nature of the ground, the apologetic nature of the tiny gravestones and the used tissue, not to mention that bright blue thread. I didn't think it looked like a color a guy would wear. Of course, we haven't proven yet that it did come from the killer…What do you think?"

Grissom slowly shook his head. "I don't know…Female serial killers are rare, and their victims usually aren't killed in such varied or physical manners."

"Time to call in the Feds?"

"Not yet. Let's see where this new information gets us. If we haven't found anything by tonight or, God forbid, another body turns up, I'll put in a call to the BAU and see what they think."

"Do you think that's wise?" she hesitated.

"None of these cases are very recent, and from the way he seemed to be accelerating, it looks like he's taking a break, or maybe he's done. Maybe he's moving and wanted to get rid of the bodies. At any rate, I think we have time to nail this guy without involving the FBI. We need to follow up on all of these leads, and now."

* * *

"Didn't Greg say all the DNA was female?" Warrick stood behind Nick as he searched through computer databases for anything related to Manuel Otis.

"Yeah, but just because it wasn't his DNA all over the scene doesn't mean he wasn't involved."

"Then who do you think the female DNA belongs to?"

"Girlfriend, wife, mother, heck, even grandmother—I dunno, but that is a very specific MO. You know what the odds are that some guy or girl just decided to use multiple methods of killing pretty female tourists and then draw on the bodies?"

"Huge?"

"Astronomical."

Warrick crossed his arms and leaned back against a table. "Do _you_ think we're dealing with a female killer?"

"Like Cat said, it would explain a lot. Plus the crimes weren't sexual in nature, which would make sense if the killer was another woman."

"Logically, yeah. But personally, what do you think?"

"I dunno…my gut's kinda leanin' towards female accomplice but not killer."

"Same here."

They were quiet for a moment as the computer ran through records, a loading bar on the bottom of the screen slowly filling in.

"So what's your plan?" Warrick asked.

"Well, right now I'm looking up any other priors and previously known associates for Manuel Otis. Especially any of the female persuasion. Then I intend to get the number of his parole officer and set up a nice little chat with Mr. Otis. He's gotta know _something_, even if he's not involved."

"He doesn't know he knows stuff that could help us?"

"Could be the case."

The computer screen suddenly halted its flash of images and text and instead flashed a red bar across the page. The two CSIs leaned in to read it, simultaneously exclaiming, "Damn!"

"Grissom's not gonna be happy," Nick muttered as he clicked print.

* * *

Grissom shuffled through stacks of papers and maps with Catherine, trying to narrow down a common denominator between the victims and a comfort zone for the killer.

"There has to be something here to tell us who he is…let's map out all of the last places they were seen."

"Ok…" Catherine grabbed a red pen and held it poised over the map. "Go."

"Days Inn on Tropicana Avenue."

She marked it with an X.

"Cab company near the airport." He gave her the exact address and she made another X.

Catherine carefully marked each of the addresses he gave for the other locations—a club, a high-end restaurant, a hotel, another hotel, a theater, and a sidewalk outside a bar. When she'd finished, she heaved a sigh of frustration. The marks were scattered all over the map. "Great. So now all we've got is that he works within the Las Vegas city limits."

Grissom rubbed at his chin thoughtfully.

Nick entered the room just then, an apologetic look on his face. "Uh, boss?"

"What is it, Nick?"

"We…can't talk to Manuel Otis."

"Why not? He's still has to check in with his parole officer, doesn't he?"

"Yeah, uh, he did."

"Nick, spill it," Catherine said, tossing a pencil across the table. "We've been at this for hours and gotten nothing. Although good news would be ideal, we're kind of used to bad news at this point."

"Ok…" He handed Grissom a folder. "Manny was killed in a bar fight months ago. There's no way he could be our killer. I checked with his parole officer anyway, and he further informed me that there were no women in Manny's life, relatives or otherwise, and definitely no one that would kill for him or help him kill. He kinda alienated everyone he came in contact with since his first arrest for, uh…exposing him constantly to two neighbor girls. Also, I found this psych report from shortly before his release. Apparently this guy shoulda been on meds ages ago—he was nuts, but not homicidal."

"Ok then…" Grissom sighed. "So the only lead we had is gone."

"Sorry," Nick said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Not your fault Nick. Thanks for checking."

"Yep," he said, waving as he headed out of the layout room.

He and Catherine played with the available data some more, seeing if any of the victims had friends or interests or family or _anything_ in common. They looked through every bit of information from each of the missing persons reports, even the things that looked completely unimportant.

Nothing.

Catherine got up to get something to eat, asking him if he wanted anything. He declined, too distracted to be hungry. Grissom took off his glasses and rubbed tiredly at his eyes, trying desperately to think around the black hole of a problem that was this case.

"Gris."

He looked up.

"I'm thinking," Catherine said gently. "You might want to make that phone call."

"Phone call?"

"To the Feds." At the face he made, she explained, "We still have nothing, and they have the kinds of resources we can only dream about."

He sat silently.

"I'll dial?" she offered.

Finally, he nodded reluctantly and she smiled and left to get a snack.

He sat in the quiet room, not looking forward to what he'd have to do soon and staring at the papers as though if he stared hard enough, they would yield some sort of clue that would enable him to not make that dreaded phone call.

The silence was abruptly broken a few minutes later.

"Gris, we just got a lead." Sara was leaning around the doorframe, looking excited.

He sat up a little straighter, hopeful but cautious after so many false starts. "What is it?"

She read off a small piece of paper. "A witness reported nearly being struck by a vehicle in the vicinity of the burial grounds shortly before we discovered the bodies."

"And why are they only reporting this now?"

"They assumed it was just a crazy driver and didn't really think anything of it. But they drove by the same area later and noticed all the police cars and crime tape."

"Ok, but what made them think the two could possibly be connected?"

"The car was an '80s model blue station wagon, license plate 7RR4T8…with what looked blood all over the back."

Grissom stood up. "Please tell me you have an address."

She held up the paper and a set of car keys as an answer. "Only twenty minutes from here."

* * *

**Author's Note: **Sorry this was sort of a blah, place-filler chapter. The next one should be shocking, exciting, revealing, emotional, and generally far better than this one, haha. I'll also have a bit more Grissom/Sara next time. I really appreciate your readership. :)


	5. Chapter 5

_Disclaimer: All characters and such belong to CBS. I own the characters that I made up and the new plot._

**Summary: **Grissom and his team dig up eight bodies in the woods and rush to process the evidence before a possible serial killer strikes again. Back at the lab, DNA evidence provides a chilling twist on the old story...

**Chronology: **No specific time, just one of the seasons with Grissom

**Pairings: **Slight GSR.

**Rating: **T for situations and probably some mild cursing.

**Author's Note:** My deepest apologies to everyone who has been following this story. I feel so bad about how long it takes me to update. Hopefully my recent streak of writing inspiration will continue and you won't have to wait so long for the next one. I'd love to hear from you!

* * *

**Spring Cleaning**

Jim Brass smartly rapped his knuckles on the outer screen door of the tiny, faded green house. Several seconds passed and there was no response from inside. Sara and Grissom fidgeted behind him. He knocked again.

This time, the battered inner door creaked open slowly to reveal a skinny young girl with matted long black hair and pale blue eyes. She wore a bright blue spaghetti strap top, stained here and there, that hung on her bony frame and a shabby pair of denim shorts. Her eyes darted over the men and the woman standing on her porch, never looking them in the eye.

"Is this the Malone residence?" Brass asked.

The girl jerked her head up and down once.

Brass glanced over at Grissom before turning back to the girl. "Is Mr. Malone home?"

Her head jerked to the side and back again, her eyes widening.

"Guess that's a no," Brass muttered under his breath.

Grissom held up a hand. Doing his best to look the girl in eye, he gently said, "We're with the crime lab. We have a warrant to look around the house. May we come in?"

Looking truly fearful now, the girl nonetheless unlatched the screen door and pushed it partially open. She then backed hurriedly away from the doorway, hands clasped at her sides, biting her lip, eyes still downcast and flitting back and forth.

Grissom held the door open for Sara and Brass before he entered himself. The interior of the house was rather dark, and the smell of old food and unwashed clothing hung in the air. Paint was peeling from several walls and the carpets were all stained. He realized he was standing in the living room only when he noticed a lump of furniture that had once been a couch and an old TV perched precariously on a small plywood structure. Piles of food wrappers and pizza boxes littered the floor.

He pulled out his pocket flashlight and directed its beam into the darkest corners, but only found more filth. "I'm going to have a look in the garage," he announced. "Sara, stay with her."

"Got it," Sara replied. She watched as Grissom left the room, and then turned to the strange waif standing behind her. Crouching down to her level, she softly said, "My name's Sara Sidle. What's yours?"

The girl only shivered in response.

"Ok," Sara replied quietly. "We don't have to talk if you don't want to."

She fidgeted and shifted, but seemed marginally less threatened.

"We just need to look around, maybe take a few things that will help us learn about your dad. Is that ok?"

Her eyes widened but she still didn't say anything.

Sara nodded and stood up, trying to decide what to do while she waited for Grissom. She surveyed the living room, trying not to inhale too deeply. _Anybody who raises kids in a place like this doesn't deserve to have them,_ she thought, her brow creasing in anger.

Meanwhile, Grissom entered the attached garage cautiously, not sure if he should trust the word of a terrified child as to whether or not the homeowner was around. Brass and a group of cops were covering the perimeter, but this was exactly the sort of place that heavily reinforced the idea of 'better safe than sorry'.

The garage smelled of motor oil, rot, and dirty laundry and had all manner of garbage strewn about the floor and workbenches, including at least two dead mice and a layer of grime that seemed to permeate the very air. Still, Grissom had a strange, sick feeling that the area might somehow be cleaner than the inside of the house.

He moved through the space delicately, stepping over tools and trash, looking for something to connect this Charles Malone to the bodies in the woods. The sheer amount of stuff scattered around was overwhelming, but the years had taught the CSI how to instantaneously categorize the visual details he was getting and concentrate on what might be relevant to the case at hand. Old cans of paint, rusty wrenches and hammers, empty half-crushed beer cans, broken glass, drop cloths, batteries of various sizes, snack food wrappers, and mildewed boxes of rodent poison cluttered the shelves and workbenches but only got a cursory glance as Gil labeled them "likely irrelevant" in his mind. If he didn't find anything else, he might go back and take a closer look to see if they were pertinent to the case.

When he'd almost given up and returned to carefully examine the old batteries, he realized what he'd originally thought was the back wall was actually a filthy tarp that had probably been an off-white color at one point but was now sort of a dingy blue-gray that matched the walls. He approached it with caution, and peeled back an edge even more carefully.

A nondescript old shovel with a rough wooden handle leaned up against an old yellowed chest freezer.

Grissom leaned in, almost afraid to go with the logical conclusion. There was a crumbly residue of dark dirt on the rusted metal bottom, however, and as he moved his pocket flashlight up the length of the object, he found several dark reddish dried smears. A quick swab and some phenolphthalein confirmed the presence of blood. He snapped several pictures.

He was afraid to try the freezer.

* * *

Sara was still standing awkwardly with the little girl when Grissom suddenly reentered the living room. "I think I found the shovel that was used," he informed his partner, and then stopped.

The girl was keeping her fists tightly clenched by her sides, but he could still see a reddish stain along the outside edges.

As non-threateningly as he could, he crouched down in front of her. Gently, he asked, "May I see your hands, please? Palms up." He demonstrated with his own hands.

She began to shake.

Grissom waited a minute before he slowly reached towards her. She didn't react. He gently took her wrists in his hands and brought them forward. She still didn't resist, but shook harder. With extreme caution, he opened her fingers away from her palms.

He, Sara, and the girl all winced.

Both palms were a mess of red flesh. The wounds oozed a little blood and showed evidence of repeated partial healing and re-injuring. Some areas oozed a white liquid and were possibly infected. The skin around the outer edges of the wounds was pink with new skin, but everywhere else bore signs of some terrible trauma.

Somewhat shocked, Sara raised her own camera and snapped a picture of the shocking injuries on the girl's hands.

The girl was crying now, silently. Fearful tears ran down her face, and only a few seconds after Sara had taken the picture, the terrified child vomited violently, barely missing Grissom's shoes.

* * *

Grissom stood with Sara and Brass several feet from where the girl was sitting in the back of a squad car, bare feet dangling through the open door, wrapped in a heavy gray police blanket. Despite the blanket and the warmth of the day, she continued shivering.

"You called for an ambulance?" Grissom asked Brass.

"Yeah, one should be here in about fifteen minutes."

"How did we not know that he had a kid?" Sara added, exasperated and clearly disgusted with the child's condition.

"Catherine didn't get much from the vehicle registration other than the guy's name and address. I had her start pulling up every piece of paper she could find on him, but it'll take a while. I asked her to call as soon as she had anything substantial."

They stood silently for a moment, just observing the shell-shocked child, and then Grissom walked slowly over to the car and pulled the door in front of the girl open the rest of the way. "Jim, do you have bottled water in your car?" Grissom asked as he peered at the girl in the backseat of the squad car, slipping a hand under her chin and tilting her head up. She didn't resist, just maintained that look of dull fear.

"Yeah, sure. What for?"

"I'd say it's a safe bet that she's malnourished, which means she's likely dehydrated as well. Plus she just threw up whatever she might have had in her stomach."

It only took the detective a minute to retrieve a bottle and hand it off to Grissom, who gently tipped some of the water into the girl's mouth, her hands painfully cradled in her lap. She sipped at the water like a baby bird.

Grissom's cellphone chose that moment to finally ring. "Sara, can you get that?" he asked, carefully tipping more water into the thirsty girl's mouth.

Sara eased the cellphone out of his back pocket gingerly and answered it on the third ring. "Grissom's cellphone, Sara Sidle speaking. Hey Catherine." She moved away from the car to continue the conversation.

When Grissom looked up a few minutes later, she signaled to him to come over to where she stood. He pressed the bottled water into Brass' hands with quick instructions on how to get the water into her throat without making her caugh.

"Well?" he asked as he approached his fellow CSI.

"She's a foster kid," Sara announced, even more disgusted than she'd been earlier. "A _foster kid_, for god's sake. How the hell did he get a foster kid? You know what, scratch that. How the hell did he pass home inspections?"

Grissom turned to look at her with a small shrug and a gentle tone. "The system's overburdened and overlooked. It sounds terrible, but I'm actually not terribly surprised."

Sara snorted, shaking her head.

"Did you get anything else?"

"Yeah…" Sara's own tone softened a little. "Her name's Kiara Goodrich and she's fourteen."

"Fourteen?" Now Grissom looked shocked, and turned to survey the girl in the back of the squad car. "I have seen twelve year olds bigger than her."

"She couldn't have killed those women," Sara added, dismissive. "There's no way."

"I agree with you Sara," he admitted. "But you saw her hands, the color of her shirt, the size of her feet. She was at the crime scene. We need to know what went on there, and how she's involved."

"I know," Sara admitted quietly. "But it doesn't seem fair."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Again, I'm so _so _sorry for the delay. I'm really trying to move things along as this story gets closer to a conclusion. Reviews are greatly appreciated, and thanks for sticking with me.


End file.
